Kindergarten Connection

Ms. Solmson's Weekly Newsletter

Kindergarten Connection

Ms. Solmson's Weekly Newsletter

January 11th - January 15th

Literacy

We continued our Winter stories this week by reading Snowmen at Night and found that we could use the same comprehension skills we learned last week, this week! On Monday, we revisited visualization. In our heads we pictured the snowmen skating on the ice and doing tricks. We illustrated the images from our heads and then added a sentence to explain what we imagined. Tuesday we discussed retelling, but instead of giving a summary like last week, we determined which details actually took place in the story and which did not. When we learned about making connections, we thought about the little boy's snowman from the story and how the snowman did not last forever. It was interesting for us to think about if we had ever made something that did not last forever. Some of us thought about sandcastles we had made at the beach or pictures we drew on the white boards at school. On Thursday we reread a page in Snowmen at Night that told the reader that the snowmen drank cold cocoa! Together, we inferred why they drank cold cocoa instead of hot cocoa. This week, we also learned about forming opinions. We shared our feelings on the story and then each chose if we like hot cocoa or chocolate milk better.

Phonics

This week in our word study we revisited word families; however, now we are comparing and contrasting 4 different word families. We have also graduated to a new level of work in our sorts.

Now that we all feel comfortable and confident identifying and reading "bossy-e" words, we learned about vowel teams. We have chanted "when two vowels go walking the first one does the talking." But we have also learned to quickly add, "this is true sometimes but not always." Actually, it was quite sad that we had to put one of our new sight words "again" in jail. The vowel teams that we have learned are ea, oa, ee, ay, and ai. Please encourage your child to hunt for vowel team words in their reading and discuss these words.

Between the Lions: "When Two Vowels Go Walking"

Math

In Math this week we began learning about comparing numbers using the terms greater than, less than, and equal to. We discovered that these important symbols actually look like an alligator's mouth and that alligators are very hungry animals that always want more food. This helped us remember to always point the symbol towards the larger number. On Wednesday we had so much fun in Munchy Math with Skittles! We each got a handful and then compared the amount of each color we had using the new symbols we learned. On Thursday, we learned about the importance of ordering numbers. We filled in a hundreds chart and discussed using words like before, after, and in between, when describing numbers.

We were so excited for Maia to bring the estimation jar back to school on Wednesday! She had filled it with delicious candy. We each made some observations on the jar and then made a smart estimation. On Friday, Eli brought the jar back and we loved estimating again!

MLK

Happy Birthday to Dr. King (Jan. 15)! We enjoyed learning about Martin Luther King Jr. It was so much fun to learn that he was born in Atlanta like most of us. But most importantly, we are grateful to know that Dr. King worked hard to make sure everyone is treated the same. In honor of Dr. King's peaceful work, we enjoyed creating a "peaceful dove" art project as a class community.

Thank You's!

Thank you to the Topor family for being our Family of the Week and to Gary Saitowitz for being our Mystery Reader. Thank you to Greg Asman, Vanda Teixeira, Lisa Fuerst, and Dan Garton for helping us during Writing Workshop. Thank you to Julie Moradi for helping during centers!

Upcoming Dates

-January 18: MLK Day No School

-February 4: 100th Day of School

-February 5: 101st Day of School - Please join us for a special Shabbat singing